The Dying of the Light
by androidilenya
Summary: The breaking of the Silmarils. (Alternatively: Fëanor at the end of the world).


_"...little is known of the dealings of Mandos with the Dead. For several reasons: Because those who have done great evil (who are few) do not return. Because those who have been under the correction of Mandos will not speak of it, and indeed, being healed, remember little of it; for they have returned to their natural courses, and the unnatural and perverted is no longer in the continuity of their lives…"_

~From Morgoth's Ring

_"Hereafter shall Earth be broken and remade, and the Silmarils shall be recovered out of Air and Earth and Sea; for Eärendil shall descend and surrender that flame which he hath had in keeping. Then Fëanor shall take the Three Jewels and bear them to Yavanna Palúrien; and she will break them and with their fire rekindle the Two Trees, and a great light shall come forth…"_

~From the second prophecy of Mandos (HoME XI)

* * *

They told him it had been a long time since he had entered the halls – three ages, maybe more.

He asked them what an _age_ was, for he had forgotten. They told him kingdoms had risen and blown away in ash, kings to dust, memories to nothing. He tried to remember what those words meant, and could not.

(A king – one who wears a crown. They said he had a crown once, and he could remember the weight of cold metal on his forehead and the bitter taste in his mouth and fire burning somewhere – but he could not remember whose crown it had been, or why the fire was burning. Had it been his crown?)

He thought that maybe he remembered light, something harsh and piercing that had something to do with his eyes, but he had not used those for a long time, nor his ears, nor his tongue, and he wasn't sure he could recall what it was to _see_, to _hear_, to _taste_. Wasn't sure he wanted to remember how to feel.

_Why am I here?_

_You have always been here._

Always been here in the darkness, with no one other than his own spirit, floating in nothing. He would have thought the word _alone_ if he had remembered what it was to be with another.

_Do you remember who you were?_

Once, he thought, he would have raged against that voice, that quiet question – but he couldn't remember why he would have, or what the voice was, or what the question meant. What was there to remember, when everything was the same?

He recalled having the memories, but not what they were – recalled something, and images without meaning, and a dark, brittle feeling inside, as though he were burning up. But those could have only been dreams, and he could have always been here. And he wondered: was there a difference between forgetting and being forgotten?

_I do not remember._

The presence – always there, always watching – withdrew, and he felt the vast space about him shrink for a split second, trapping him, choking him.

He did not struggle. He had not, for a long time, and perhaps did not even remember what it meant to struggle.

He remembered fighting against the world once (or maybe he did not), and he remembered something like fear – unless the tightness inside had another name, one he had forgotten. Names had once been important, he thought, but so many had slipped away. It had been ages, and that was a long time – long enough to forget what it was to remember.

The presence returned (after a minute? an hour? an _age_? time meant nothing here, and it could have been all or none of those) and he felt himself moving, drifting upwards. He did not remember movement, and it shocked him, left him with a floating feeling inside. The word breathless came to him, but he no longer drew breath here, and the meaningless syllables slipped from his mind without glancing off his tongue.

_It is time._

There was sudden pain, and he remembered pain, though not from where. He found that his eyes were open, that something was dazzling them – light. Something warm trickled down his cheek and he marveled at the sensation, unfamiliar and new. He lifted his hands, touched something wet, and realized he could move once more.

Something dark crossed the light before him and he forced his eyelids in a motion that seemed right, clearing away the refracting brilliance enough to glimpse a pale blur in a dark shadow.

_Are you ready?_

_Ready for what? _He felt hands beneath his elbows, lifting him to his feet, and abruptly he was standing – standing – and swaying back and forth slightly, exploring the way the ground tugged at the bottoms of his feet, held him to it. Had he stood like this before? He thought so – but he couldn't trust anything he had thought.

The world around him cleared, his eyes not paining him so much (the flood of light had dimmed, maybe, or perhaps he had grown used to it). He tilted his head up, stared into the face of the one still holding him, the one scrutinizing his face as though searching for some hidden scrap of memory, a hint of who he once was. He stared back, wondering who the shadow-presence was, wondering why he could see again.

_Are you going to take me somewhere_? He thought he could move on his own now, his body slowly remembering what it was to lift a leg and put it down again – _walking_. The words were coming back, after so long, though he wasn't yet sure where they were coming from.

(What had come before the darkness? He remembered fire, and something red – or another color – and faces peering down at him and the light fading–)

The other one pulled back, apparently satisfied with what he saw (or did not see) in his face. _Come_, he ordered, then turned and began walking away, not waiting to see if he followed.

He took one step, then another, becoming more confident as he moved. _Who are you? _It seemed like a question that would have had meaning, once, and he wanted to ask the one burning inside of him but did not have the words – and so made do with this one.

The other glanced down at him. _Your keeper, for these ages. And now it is time for you to perform your last duty. For the world._

_What is the world?_

The other – his keeper – did not reply.

He looked away, and noticed their surroundings for the first time – noticed that they had surroundings for the first time. There were fields, and hills, and everything was a color he thought was called _green_.

Green had been _her_ favorite color, whoever _she_ was. It had looked beautiful on her, with her red hair. There had been a green dress once. He remembered a green dress, crumpled on the floor, but nothing more – not even the face of the woman who had worn it.

_Where are we going?_

There was no answer.

They reached a hill and he stared at the top of it, entranced – a new color, _black_, and two spidery silhouettes reaching clawed fingers up to the sky.

_What are these?_

_They were Trees, once_. There was a note of something that might have been _sadness_ in his keeper's voice, and there was a light in his eyes as he looked at the Trees that could have been familiar, might have stirred something from the darkness.

Something has been _lost_, he thought, and with that thought came a sudden emotion, black and choking, a lump of something hard and heavy in his stomach. He thought the words, _fire and blood_, and wondered what they meant.

There was a woman waiting for them at the mound, and he stared at her, wondering if she was the one who had worn a green dress – but no. She was familiar, but not that one – too tall, hair the wrong color. He wondered if his keeper knew who that woman had been.

_I have brought him, Yavanna,_ his keeper said, nudging him a few steps forward.

The woman reached out a hand to him and he took it, marveling at the touch of skin on skin – where had he felt that before? _You have come at last, then. There is a task for you._

She moved aside and he noticed for the first time the three figures standing behind her, and stared, transfixed, wondering why there was a feeling of familiarity in the last two faces.

A man dressed all in white, glittering with the dust of jewels, something glowing in his hand. A man with flaming red hair and two hands cupped around something shining like fire. A man with sorrow in his eyes and dark hair and scarred hands clutching a glittering star. All holding the same light, all watching him with the same expression, one he could not identify.

He felt a soft hand on his back, glanced up at the woman. She smiled. _Take them._

_The light?_

_Yes. Take the light and bring it here._

He reached forward, silently asking for what he felt, somehow, to be his. The red-haired man stirred, something in his grey eyes burning.

"Father–"

He flinched away from the spoken words, ears ringing, and wondered what that word meant. He felt the woman gesture sharply from beside him, and the man fell silent.

_Father–?_

_Take them_, the woman urged, and he stretched his hands wider. They spilled the light into them, three hard, smooth, cold jewels, and he thought for one frozen second that they would burn his hands – knew that they _should_ burn him, for some reason.

There was nothing. Only the light, in his hands.

_Why_– He looked up at his keeper, questioning, and a smile crossed the pale face.

_You have been cleansed_, his keeper told him, as though he knew.

_Bring them here,_ the woman ordered, crooking a finger at him. He climbed the mound, cradling the light to his chest, every color and word he had forgotten dancing under his fingertips.

_Is this my light?_ he asked, knowing that it was, thinking it had all begun to fall back into place somehow.

_No_.

He stopped, held the light tighter. _Yes_. And just that – simple. It was his. He remembered it being his, remembered holding this light before.

_It is your task. To let this be broken, to bring the light back. _The woman's hand stroked the blackened tree and came away grey with ash. _Bring it here and we will end this._

_End?_

He thought he remembered another end – or had it been a beginning? There had been light, and then he had been in darkness and forgotten the light. For ages.

_Will it all end? Will I end?_ He wanted to. He wanted it to be over, though he didn't quite know what it was that had to end now. But he wanted, or thought he did, or wished he did, and in the end it was all the same thing.

_Yes_. She smiled, and he saw something glisten on her cheek. _It will end._

He opened his hands, spilled the jewels onto the grass. She knelt to pick them up, cradle them in her arms. The light spilled from her fingers, glanced off the charcoal trees with all the colors of the land, and the name of the woman in the green dress slid back into place, a piece slotted into its rightful position in his mind.

_Nerdanel_.

And the man with the flaming hair, and the man with sorrow in his eyes – _Maitimo. Makalaurë._

_Forgive me–_

The woman lifted the first jewel into the air and smashed it to the ground at the base of the tree, and the soft dirt should have cushioned its fall, it should not have broken but it _did_, a million sparks raining up, golden light flowing up the black trunk in a shining river.

He felt a dark wave behind him, threatening to crash down, and took a step forward, reaching. He remembered black mountains against an ashen sky, and smoke, and whips of fire.

The second jewel exploded on the ground and something in him trembled.

(His son was crying and the ships were collapsing in flames still but he was burning up from inside, the fire within consuming him, and the darkness was coming–)

He strained for the final jewel, hand grasping, and he felt his fingertips brush the light – and _burn_.

The light shattered. He fell into darkness, still reaching.


End file.
